Blog #127

I’ve been very, very busy this week.  No time to say Goodbye-Hello.  Goodbye.  Hello, and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling chipper.  I’ve been so busy mostly dealing with my wife’s continuing birthday festival.  It appears to be never-ending.  Last week she went to three Happy Hours on three consecutive nights and left me to fend for myself.  I’m not a good fender.

                                               

My wife?  Well she’s out on the town

I miss her and I’m feeling down

Like Kate without Tracy

Or George without Gracie

I’m no good when she’s not around.

Please don’t tell her I said that.  She might get the idea I need her.  Anyway, they’re still taking her out even though her birthday was six weeks ago!  She’s been taken out more than Chinese food.

And what do you think those girls talk about in their little distaff staff meetings?  They talk about what single, senior lady is dating what single, senior gentleman.  Do you think they hold hands?  Do they sleep together.  Who can we fix up with that recent widow or widower?  It’s like they never left High School.  Then she comes home and tells me what my life is going to be like if she goes before me.  First, I’m going to get casseroles.  I don’t even know what that means, but it’s apparently some kind of ritualistic rite of passage I’ve never heard of – When you’re born you get circumcised; when you’re a teenager you get pimples; when your wife is gone you get casseroles.  Then she tells me I’m not allowed to date any of her friends.  Then she says she has someone picked out for me already.  Someone I don’t even know!

She likes to control everything I do.  She tells me how to drive, where to park, what to say.  So now, apparently, she thinks that when she’s off to that Holy Canasta Parlor in the sky where all the card tables are square, all the dinner tables are round and all the walls have mirrors – she thinks she’s still going to be able to pull my strings like some Heavenly Edgar Bergen.

Back to her birthday.  I remember that morning perfectly.  I arose slowly in the morning and waited for my brain to determine what the abrupt change from horizontal to vertical really meant.  I limped into the bathroom and took a pill for my heart.  Then I rubbed on some cream to help my dry skin and walked slowly to the study, favoring my hip.  I got my 2.75 reading glasses, took some fiber pills and a Senior Multi-Vitamin.  Carol walked in looking fresh and perky.  She had just finished the treadmill and was on her way to Yoga class.  I wished her happy birthday.  Poor girl is getting old.

My pre-hip-surgery exercises have actually given me a little more energy, so a few days ago I tried to do something helpful.  This is usually a mistake.  I noticed Carol was reading in bed with a low-wattage bulb, so I got a higher wattage bulb with the intention of brightening her life.  Have you ever heard me say, “I can’t even screw in a lightbulb”?  I screwed this one in and there was a pop and all the lights went out in the bedroom and bathroom.  I tried the circuit breaker, but that didn’t work.  The next day, I had a workman tell me I shorted out the lamp.  I unplugged it, switched on the breaker and … well, now I know how God felt on that First Day.  Except God didn’t have a wife yelling at him.  Or maybe He did.  Do you think God had a wife?  Mrs. God? 

What? You made Adam in your own image?  What makes you think you’re so hot looking?  Go right now and make a Woman.  Out of what?  Use Adam’s rib, Stupid.  The poor Schmuck doesn’t need half of that stuff you gave him, like an appendix or a baby toe or that ego.  And you’d better make the Woman look like me if you know what’s good for your holy self.  Maybe make the breasts a little bigger. 

No, don’t be nervous.  I’m the one who’s going to get hit by lightning, not you.  But just to be safe, hold your device a little farther away.

And tell Adam he has to honor and obey her.  No, she doesn’t have to honor and obey him.  If you made him in your image, he probably can’t even screw in a light bulb.  That “Let There Be Light” trick of yours blew out half the stars until I showed you how to do it.

Maybe you should move even farther away!  Or maybe you should just spend 30 seconds in my head some time.  It would freak you out. 

Now I need some rest, so I’m going to leave you.  Oh, before I do, I want to talk about movies.  When I leave a movie theater, someone always asks if I liked the movie.  I’m an honest guy, so I tell them my opinion and the next day everyone in the county knows what I said.  “Hey, I heard you didn’t like that movie.”  So I decided instead of sharing my opinion with the rest of the world, I would just shrug.  I’m kind of a loner anyway.  Then I thought, wait, what am I saying?  Every week I share with you, and anyone else bored enough to read my stuff, every aspect of my life from my inability to get from Point A to Point B to standing in my shorts with the brown paper bag over my head.  So why not just tell you what I thought about the movie?  You won’t tell anyone, will you?

We saw Late Night with Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling.  I liked it a lot.  It was light and warm and non-violent and pretty much delightful.  There, I’ve done it.  Keep it to yourself!  And keep counting your blessings, staying well and coming back to me.  Next Thursday – we have a date.  I won’t have anything else to do anyway.  My wife will be out celebrating her birthday.  See you then.

Charlie McCarthy                              Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com